RoboCop Will Ride Again in RoboCop Returns From Director Neill Blomkamp

Deadline reports that MGM has hired District 9 director Neill Blomkamp to make a film called RoboCop Returns, a sort of sequel/reboot to the original 1987 Paul Verhoeven film, and unrelated to the 2014 remake. The hope is for this to reinvigorate the franchise.

Justin Rhodes (Terminator 6) is rewriting a script by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, who also wrote the original film. The pair wrote a sequel script after they wrote the original movie, but it never got made due to a writers strike and Verhoeven’s lack of interest in doing it. Two unrelated sequels followed, and a long time after came the 2014 reboot, but none of those told the story of the original follow-up idea. That script, and its ideas, lingered.

“Right when Trump was about to be elected president [MGM President Jon Glickman] called me and said, ‘Did you actually predict in your sequel script that a reality star would run for president and win?’ Neumeier told Deadline. “We had. So Mike and I wrote a draft and gave one interview in Barbados and I think the only person who read it was Neill Blomkamp, and that set this in motion.”

The reported plot synopsis is that “anarchy reigns and the fate of Detroit hangs in the balance as RoboCop makes his triumphant return to fight crime and corruption.” However, it’s unclear if this is a direct sequel, a straight reboot, or a bit of both. It seems like the latter.

“The original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid,” Blomkamp said. “I loved it then and it remains a classic in the end of 20th Century sci-fi catalog, with real meaning under the surface. Hopefully that is something we can get closer to in making of a sequel. That is my goal here.”